Human Player Performance at Regional Events

[Yan Wang]

I just looked at this fairly recent picture on CD:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...gle&picid=6809

And it brings up the question, why are there only TWO balls in that stationary goal?

An alliance starts with 6... getting 2 is just poor. I wonder, how have human players in general performed at regional events? Are they getting at least 5 out of the 6 balls they start with into the goals or is it really bad in general? Did teams just let anyone out there to shoot or did they actually have tryouts for human player?

Small balls are worth so much this year if used well that it seems a waste to miss 2/3 of what you are guranteed in a match.

[KenWittlief]

if that is the clock on the left side, the match isnt over - theres still 25 seconds left - maybe they havent shot the other 4 yet?

[Yan Wang]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

if that is the clock on the left side, the match isnt over - theres still 25 seconds left - maybe they havent shot the other 4 yet?

One minute and twenty seconds for two players to shoot one ball each? Seems hardly realistic.

If the indeed was actually true, then the human players should learn how to manage their time better

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by Yan Wang

I just looked at this fairly recent picture on CD:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...gle&picid=6809

And it brings up the question, why are there only TWO balls in that stationary goal?

From what I saw at NJ, some HPs were very, very good and some were pretty bad.
It could have been lack of practice, pressure, stress, or lack of sleep.
I saw one short girl shooting 9 for 9 while another tall guy missing half his shoot because he was throwing them too hard.

I definitely agreed with you, 5 of 6 balls into the fix goal should be the average. (unless the teams are holding back the balls for another strategy?)

[LauraN]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

if that is the clock on the left side, the match isnt over - theres still 25 seconds left - maybe they havent shot the other 4 yet?

This is possible, but I do remember at least a few matches where there were only 2-3 balls in the goals for one alliance at the end of the match. From what I saw, there was a huge difference among the human players- some were OK (it would be unGP to say "bad" ) and some were very, very, good.

I remember in particular one of the playoff rounds at the NJ Regional...ok, so I don't really remember because I can't tell you the team name or exact match (this being my first ever regional, I was slightly exhausted by the time 3:00 Saturday afternoon rolled around ) but I'm sure someone else can give you the information. The point is, their human player made most, if not all, shots they took. The stationary goal was pretty much completely full at the end of the match. It was ridiculous. (Good ridiculous.)

Another thing possibly worth mentioning is that the goals aren't solid- there are obviously gaps between the PVC piping, so some shots that were on target actually slipped through those gaps. I realize that's part of the game, I'm just pointing out that this could account for low scoring without the blame being placed on the human player.

Our team comes from a very small school and we don't have sports teams at all, so we didn't have any kind of tryouts or anything. Our human player was selected mostly because he was an upperclassman who expressed interest. We just got lucky in the fact that he was pretty darn good.

[David the bomb]

Some of the people on our team are so horribly bad that I don't even want to watch. I understand missing a couple because of pressure, but taking a minute and a half to shoot two ball, if that, is lame. I was shooting probably a ball every couple seconds. I made 10 out of 10 doing that. Shooting the balls into the stationary goals in easy.

[OneAngryDaisy]

yea.. i was taping some rounds for scouting purposes, and when i was putting them together yesterday I noticed a human player heaving the balls one handed. This guy was missing the goals by five feet every time. I mean, I don't want to be mean or un-GP, but get some common sense. If every shot is off by five feet, one behind the goal, one to its left, and one to its right, you need to seriously reconsider your throwing style.

I must commend the shooting of team 869?- Cordis- those guys had a ball catcher bot, and i swear their shooter made all 18 shots. crazy stuff.

[Eric Bareiss]

Most people that have decided shooting 90% should be standard for all HPs have never been an HP. Ridiculing people for not making every single shot is like making fun of drivers for not hanging sometimes or dropping the big ball or falling over.

People miss because it's hard. Some people just have bad days or they are distracted. I missed all 10 shots in 2002 once, not because I was bad just because soemtimes people miss. It's really not as easy as it looks.

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

I averaged 9 or 10 balls using the stationary goal. I was also one of the top two shooting at the mobile goal from various postitions. I just hope Ill get a shot at UCF cause we have a bunch of good shooters.

[Terminator6]

Originally Posted by Eric Bareiss

People miss because it's hard. Some people just have bad days or they are distracted. I missed all 10 shots in 2002 once, not because I was bad just because soemtimes people miss. It's really not as easy as it looks.

true true...a lot of people seemed to be folding under the pressure at VCU from what i saw...

another hinderance i saw was that many people would shoot shots extremely fast so that they could shoot more when their bots herded more balls...however the rather wobbly goal was causing shots that should have gone in to bounce out or miss the back...people were shooting too fast...if they had waited another second...things would have been a whole lot different in terms of score

[jamapor]

the best HP i've seen is 126's. she shoots almost 100%, and is just smooth and consistent

[Squeaky]

Im surprised no one has mentioned team 33's shooter at VCU. Because of him, Buzz 9 won that regional. I mean, they had a good robot that gathered EVERY BALL on the field, but they had the shooter scoring the points. The whole crowd got into it, yelling the number of consecutive shots he made, 1 right after the other, it was great. Our shooter made 2 out of 3 every time except once, but we had a cap/hanging robot so he didn't get many chances. Well good luck to everyone Atlanta. I wish team we could be joining you guys, but semi-finals won't get us there. See ya next year!

[trev2023]

I think that people didn't give enough thought into the human player beforehand. Many teams may have disregarded it, think of it as "basketball shots" and not practicing previously.
It is also harder than it looks. I shot for our team once because our HP was helping to work on our robot, it was a practice round, and we had to send someone so I ended up going. I made one out of four . I guess it's good i wasn't the HP.
It does add another element into the game though, which is considering HP skill level while picking alliances, which was not as big of a deal last year.

[Yan Wang]

Originally Posted by Eric Bareiss

Most people that have decided shooting 90% should be standard for all HPs have never been an HP. Ridiculing people for not making every single shot is like making fun of drivers for not hanging sometimes or dropping the big ball or falling over.

People miss because it's hard. Some people just have bad days or they are distracted. I missed all 10 shots in 2002 once, not because I was bad just because soemtimes people miss. It's really not as easy as it looks.

I understand there's lot of pressure. I've been behind the driver station the last two years as a controller. This'll be my third year, but as a driver.

On our team, for human player tryouts, we decided to make it pressure and time intensive. Potential HPs had 90 seconds to shoot 36 balls. I got 33/36 in just over 80 sec. The next highest was 24, then 21. It didn't seem that bad.

Maybe our tryout was lacking ear-ringing techo

[Tom Bottiglieri]

unless you have NO prior experience in sports, you should easily be able to sink at least 5/10 shots in the stationary goal. You are only like 10 feet away and you have a backstop. I can see if you miss the mobile goal, but cmon people, if you know you arent good, give the job to someone else, or at least give the balls to your alliances hp.